Bim’s Got Talent

21st December 2025

For the uninitiated, ‘Bim’ is a widely used nickname for Barbados. It is an island of many talents. In the (sadly distant) past it has produced some of the world’s greatest cricketers, three of whom are commemorated together at Kensington Oval:

Fast forward to 2025. In the past week we have been treated to a parade of the current stars. First up, last Saturday: the annual must-see festive event that is St Winifred’s School pantomime. The place was absolutely rammed – and this was just one night of a month-long run.

Honestly, these kids were great. Singing, dancing, acting, wisecracks, amazing sets, costumes and lighting, topical gags and social commentary…it reminded me of this (not for the first time I’m showing my age):

Then last Thursday our gardener Jason (he of cutlass-wielding centipede-chopping fame) casually mentioned that his church was participating in a concert…and that he was singing a solo. Well! Obviously we had to be there:

This was quite an occasion too. Huge church, big audience (not all of them respectful of the polite request to be there 15 minutes early – I’d say the numbers approximately doubled during the event 😆) and a very warm welcome for us. We were even asked, as first time attendees, to stand to receive a round of applause – aw, shucks, guys…

Again the range of skills on display was impressive. Some of the voices – wow. Many inventive takes on traditional Christmas favourites – who knew how good Silent Night could sound when played by a sax-and-steelpan-toting duo? A personal favourite was the youthful percussion band belting out Hark the Herald Angels Sing, with a young lad who couldn’t have been a day over 8 whacking his skins so hard he evoked the spirit of Zeppelin’s late, great John Bonham – or maybe this guy:

Just a pity I could only see the top of his little head bouncing around like crazy. Great stuff. Anyway, needless to say this was all padding for the main event – our Jason taking to the stage to bring the house down with ‘I’m Pressing on the Upward Way’. He’s an enthusiastic character by nature and he had all the moves as well as a great set of pipes. I was honestly reminded of Ol’ Blue Eyes himself. All hail the Sinatra of St Joseph!

Phew. After all that excitement we decided against making it three seasonal singalongs in a week and passed on carols on the beach at the yacht club this afternoon. Instead, after the habitual flurry of activity this morning (hardware store, cleaning windows, making mince pies!) we decamped to the lovely local beach at the Crane for a late lunch and a dip – except that the waves were so big and had stirred up so much sand in the water we passed and called it ‘Stir-Up Sand-day’ instead. I forgot to take a photo so here’s a gratuitous one from our evening dip on Friday at Oistins. Happy winter solstice everyone x